All I Care About Is Love (And All That Jazz)
by HollowIsTheWorld
Summary: At the beginning of the trip, Samandriel was wondering why he couldn't have found someone else to ride with. Benny wasn't the worst he'd ever had to endure on the ten hour trip home, but that didn't mean the ride looked like it was going to be pleasant.


**AN: **I do not own anything related to Supernatural or Chicago, and I know very little about UCLA, so I apologize for any inaccuracies.

* * *

At the beginning of the trip, Samandriel was wondering why he couldn't have found someone else to ride with. Benny wasn't the worst he'd ever had to endure on the ten hour trip home, but that didn't mean the ride looked like it was going to be pleasant.

The real red flags weren't there; Benny was ready to go right on schedule, he didn't have an absurd amount of luggage, and, although Benny's car was a piece of crap machine, it seemed to run just fine when Benny turned the key and the engine roared to life.

They'd only met two days earlier, when Samandriel, in a fit of desperation because he really didn't want to have to ride the bus the over six hundred mile drive back home, finally gave in and accepted that he wasn't going to find any better offers. The last time he'd called home Castiel had mentioned that his boyfriend knew someone who also went to UCLA and lived in Oregon, not far away from the Novaks, but Samandriel had dragged his heels about getting in touch with him, because driving ten hours next to some fraternity douche sounded like an unique sort of hell.

But his options were that, a bus ride he couldn't really afford, a plane ride he couldn't really afford, or hitchhiking. One of his brothers would probably have been willing to come pick him up, but that was doubly expensive and Samandriel knew they were having a tough enough time just keeping Samandriel from having to take out loans and paying their own bills.

So, Benny Lafitte it was. Ten hours sitting next to a guy who probably was there on an athletic scholarship and spent most of his time chasing skirts and drinking booze and would be gone by next semester.

His family had better have something damn good planned for Christmas to make up for it.

He met Benny in their agreed upon parking lot at eight in the morning, suitcase in tow, and did his best to be polite, thanking Benny for the ride and handing him some gas money before he could get irritated and lose the will to do so.

Benny smiled easily in greeting and began calling Samandriel 'pigeon' almost immediately, much to the younger student's chagrin.

"Just throw your stuff behind the seats," Benny told him, moving to the car.

Samandriel obeyed and climbed into the passenger seat. "I can drive part way, if you want," he offered, remembering last year's spring break when he'd driven with a girl named Hael from one of his art classes and she'd nearly fallen asleep at the wheel and killed them both. Samandriel was still friends with her, but didn't think he could handle making the trip with her ever again. Besides, her parents had moved and Oregon was no longer anywhere near her route home.

"I should be alright, but I'll keep that in mind," Benny replied, pulling out of the parking lot and beginning to drive away from the school. "I've made longer drives than this, so don't worry."

Samandriel, not at all reassured, took to staring out the window and wishing he had a car. Maybe next year, he told himself. Maybe next year he'd have saved up enough. He'd nearly made enough last summer, but Castiel had been mugged and they'd needed every cent to pay his medical bills. Samandriel had been only too happy to help out, but it had set him almost all the way back to square one, financially speaking.

The first hour of the drive was quiet except for the radio, which Benny kept reaching over and fidgeting with. Every time he changed stations Samandriel tensed for a moment, afraid he was going to be stuck listening to obnoxiously deafening rap music or something the whole way home, unable to protest because Benny was being nice enough to give him a lift, even if he was only doing so because Dean had asked him and they were apparently really good friends.

Finally, the radio turned almost entirely to either static or stations that Benny apparently didn't approve of, and he sighed and shut it off.

"Want to pull a CD out of the glove compartment there, pigeon?" Benny asked, nodding his head towards it as though Samandriel had somehow made it to almost twenty years old without knowing what a glove compartment was or where to find it.

The contents of the glove compartment surprised him enough to keep him from giving out a biting retort. It was almost entirely filled with CDs and cassette tapes, most of them appearing to be jazz music, some of it looking to go back all the way to the nineteen-twenties.

"You… Have very old fashioned taste in music."

"Yeah, so I've been told. I keep it all in here because some of the guys in my house are dicks and think it'd be funny to mess with my music."

"How dare you have tastes outside of that creepy Robin Thicke song, right?"

Benny chuckled. "Glad to hear I'm not the only guy who doesn't think that song is some sort of gospel. If I have to listen to it one more time I'm going to throw the responsible stereo out of a window."

Samandriel snorted, filtering through the glove box to see if one of the CDs caught his attention. "I can support that. But I have to ask, what's with the cassette tapes?" He'd checked the car already; if there was something to play them on he didn't see it.

"I used to have a cassette player that hooked into the stereo, but it broke a couple months back."

"I see." Samandriel popped a disk out of its case and put it in to play.

"What'd you decide on, pigeon?"

"I chose one at random. And quit calling me pigeon."

"Make me."

Samandriel glared at Benny, but he wasn't looking.

They were quiet again until the CD played out and started over, at which point Benny ejected it and asked Samandriel to swap it out with another.

"You really like listening to music while you drive, huh?"

"Are you saying you'd rather spend the next ten - well, eight, now - hours sitting here in uncomfortable silence?"

"Fair enough."

Samandriel put the old CD back into the glove box and another CD that he'd somehow missed before moved and caught his attention.

"Is this…" He pulled it out as he spoke. "It is. You have the Chicago soundtrack?"

Benny tensed up defensively. "It's got fantastic music."

"Hey, no argument from me." Samandriel put it in and pushed play, feeling that maybe this drive could turn out to be okay after all. "What's your favorite song?"

Benny bit his lip, considering, as the beginning of the Overture leading up to And All That Jazz began to play. "Probably… Razzle Dazzle. You?"

"Cell Block Tango," Samandriel replied without any hesitation.

Benny raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Remind me not to piss you off, pigeon."

"Stop calling me pigeon, you'll be off to a good start."

"You've got a problem with pigeon?"

"Yes."

"Well then. How about… Angel?"

Samandriel glared, and maintained it until Benny looked over and chuckled. "Come on, you've got to give me something to work with. Samandriel's a mouthful."

"My brothers manage just fine."

"Your brothers have weird names too. I thought Dean was kidding when he told me his boyfriend had a brother named Lucifer."

Samandriel couldn't really argue with that. Lucifer was a pretty weird name to give someone. "_Fine_."

Benny chuckled again and started to sing along with the music. By the time they got through Funny Honey Samandriel had given in and was singing too.

When the CD was almost done they were both laughing and out of breath from trying to sing louder than each other, slaughtering the notes unmercifully as they did so. The atmosphere in the car was much lighter than it had been so far, and they began chatting comfortably.

"So, what brings you all the way out to UCLA, pigeon? Dean said you were an artist or something?"

Samandriel nodded. "Painting, mostly. UCLA gave me the best scholarships and stuff, so it ended up being the cheapest option. What about you?"

"My dad's school. His fraternity too. Deal was, I go to his school, join his fraternity, he helps out with finances. I'm on a soccer scholarship, business major, and I take cooking classes when I can find them."

"What do you want to do?"

Benny hesitated.

"Come on, you can tell me," Samandriel said. "I won't tell anyone."

"Specifically, not my old man. He doesn't approve."

"I won't tell."

"I want to own a restaurant."

"Yeah?"

Benny nodded. "Maybe back in Louisiana. Or at least that style of cooking. My mom taught me how before she died."

"That's pretty neat."

"You think so?"

"Definitely. And, hey, I'm an art student. I'll be lucky to work anywhere besides Starbucks for the rest of my life. I can't really judge."

Benny laughed. "Well, if I own a restaurant before you start doing galleries or whatever, you can be a waiter."

"Aw, taking pity on the poor, broke, art student?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I just think you'd look good in an apron."

The look in Benny's eyes that accompanied the sentence made Samandriel's jaw drop in shock.

"Did you just-?"

"Did I just what, pigeon?"

"Are you - Was that -?"

"Come on, angel, spit it out. You can speak English, I know it."

"You're a dick."

"Yeah, see, there you go. Perfect English. A little crude, I'll admit, but understandable."

Samandriel rolled his eyes, letting the apron comment drop, as he had no idea how to respond to it.

"So, you're from Louisiana?" he asked instead.

Benny nodded. "Moved to Oregon about five years ago, after my mom died. Guess my dad didn't want reminders of her."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yeah, I do. Miss the food, miss the music, miss the weather... Oregon's nice enough, but it's just not for me, you know?"

"I get it." There was a brief lull in the conversation. "I don't think I've ever had any… I don't know what the term for it is, but that style of cooking. That Louisiana's known for."

Benny looked exaggeratedly horrified. "Never had gumbo?"

Samandriel shook his head.

"Well, I'm going to have to fix that."

"Are you offering to cook for me?"

The look that Benny had gotten when talking about aprons returned. "Well, I'm certainly not against the idea."

This time, Samandriel managed to work up the nerve to reply properly, although he still felt himself blushing all over. "Are you flirting with me, Lafitte?"

Benny grinned wickedly. "Finally gotten to that conclusion, huh, pigeon?"

"Don't call me pigeon."

"It's a term of endearment. Means you're cute."

Samandriel could feel his blush getting stronger and could only hope that Benny hadn't noticed. "I'm not cute."

"Sure you are. You're adorable."

"I am _not_. Puppies and kittens are cute. Not me."

Benny laughed, and Samandriel was horrified to find himself thinking that Benny had a very nice laugh.

"What would you like me to call you then, angel? Ruggedly handsome? I just don't feel that suits you as well. You have too many freckles."

"What's wrong with my freckles?"

"Not a thing. They're… Adorable."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"If you weren't driving, I would."

"That a promise?"

"Huh?"

"I can get off at the next exit, you know."

Samandriel's heart nearly stuttered to a halt. "Wh-What?"

"You're not used to being blatantly hit on, are you, pigeon?"

"You can't be serious."

"Well, we've only known each other for two days, and we didn't really talk about anything besides transportation until today, so I feel it'd be impolite to destroy your virtue, but I'm not above a messy make-out session on the side of the road."

Samandriel spluttered for a moment, before acknowledging to himself that he wasn't opposed to the idea himself. Before he could say so, however, the rest of what Benny had said caught up with him. "Are you implying you think I'm a virgin?"

Benny just laughed at him.

Their impromptu make-out session took place an hour later, and set them behind schedule by nearly twenty minutes.

By the time Benny dropped Samandriel off in front of his house, he'd managed to admit to himself that he was several steps past a crush.

At the end of their trip back to school in January, Samandriel was steeling himself to have to tell people his new boyfriend was in a fraternity.


End file.
